Scrum Master

About Admiral Money

Admiral Money is an exciting, new division of Admiral Group. We have the freedom and innovation of a small start up with the security of a large parent company, Admiral.

The journey started when we launched unsecured personal loans in June 2017. We went on to be the first direct to consumer car finance provider in December 2017. Since then, we have gone from strength to strength and have some exciting plans for the future.

We’re looking for people who are keen to learn, excited about getting stuck in and are ready for a challenge to help us to achieve our aim of creating a special lending business for our customers.

The Role 

The different teams part of the change delivery landscape in Admiral Money aspire to be best-in-class change delivery functions, with a customer centric approach, contributing to our strategy and our product expansion, while collaborating closely with internal stakeholders/areas.

Admiral Money’s technology stack is modern and mainly centred around AWS, with a forward-looking service-driven approach. In 2023 we have undergone a re-platforming effort that has allowed us to move forward our platform and architecture towards our ambitions.

The Role's Objective 

The Scrum Masters are part of a delivery Squad within a Tribe, with the Product Owner and Tech Lead are part of the leadership of the Squad.

The Scrum Masters are expected to work closely with all squad members and other relevant stakeholders to ensure successful and high quality delivery on a sprint-to-sprint basis.

The Scrum Master has overall accountability for the success of the squad, ensuring delivery of value, continuous improvement of processes to achieve best-in-class performance, acting as a servant leader, delivery manager and coach, whilst embedding Agile ways of working into our squads.

The main responsibilities of the role are to make the squads/teams successful and ensure they perform to the best of their abilities, ensuring they focus on the right activities, while managing all the Agile ceremonies and artifacts, as well as managing/removing dependencies, impediments and handling generic tasks to shelter the team from distractions and also shelter them from outside interference. Also, the Scrum Master has responsibility for upskilling the Squad in Agile ways of working that enable the team to self-organise, manage, and deliver value for our customers and company.

You will not be alone; we have Scrum Masters in Admiral Money and in Admiral Group, while also having an experienced team of colleagues that will work with you to achieve success.

Key Contribution Areas 

• Accountable for maximizing Squads/teams ability to deliver value, hit Sprint goals, and contribute to Strategic Objectives. Ensure the squads/teams focus on value adding activities and not getting sidetracked, while handling generic tasks to shelter the team from distractions.
• Accountability for the overall process the squad/team follows to deliver value – acting as a servant leader, delivery manager and coach. Coaches the squads/teams on Agile ways of working and how to use Agile in the most effective manner.
• Understands what standard activities are required for delivery and help us get ahead of the curve on possible upcoming blockers and being proactive about them i.e. technical decisions, compliance sign off, pen testing booking, etc.
• Identifies, manages, tracks, removes, and escalates blockers/impediments at squad level to maintain flow of value, ensuring squads/teams’ progress, calling in for support from management and stakeholders where required.
• Owns and manages risks, issues, and dependencies at Squad level. Manages and resolves squad-to-squad dependencies working with other Scrum Masters and Product Owners.
• Facilitates Squad level ceremonies like Daily Huddles/Stand-ups, Sprint Planning, Sprint Demos, Sprint Review, etc. Embed best practices and experience to improve in each of those ceremonies.
• Tracks and reports on Squad’s performance, progress on goals, and value delivery. Uses visual management tools to report on Squad performance.
• Manages squads/team’s capacity, utilization, and velocity. Actively engages with other Scrum Masters and Product Owners in Admiral Money to discuss resourcing and utilization strategies. Shelters the team from outside interference.
• Build a safe environment for continuous improvement: Building a trusting and safe environment where problems can be raised without fear of blame, retribution, or being judged, with an emphasis on healing and problem-solving. Drive collaboration and continuous improvement mind-set in the squads/teams. Drives transparency and openness of communication in the squads/teams.
• Build a close relationship with all the squad, including the Product Owner to support each other with your roles. Specifically support the Product Owner and Tech Lead by helping with techniques for effective Product Goal definition and Product Backlog management and refinement.
• Release management coordination: Be the bridge for the team and release management responsibilities, allowing the squad to remain focused on completing the sprint goal and delivering value.
• Supports the wider Change delivery framework, to ensure Change is well controlled, consistent, visible, and transparent to other stakeholders, whilst also maintaining their risks, assumptions, issues and Decisions updated as part of the RAID management process.

About You

You are good with people, curious and methodical, and someone who enjoys constant continuous improvement.  You get energy from getting the most out of people and helping them solve their biggest challenges.  You constantly question how we can make these things better and efficient.  Above all, you are passionate about creating an Agile environment that puts customers at the heart of what we do. You have excellent communication skills and enjoy working with colleagues to troubleshoot problems and solve dependencies.

• Proven work experience and/or certification as a Scrum Master, with expertise and deep knowledge of Agile practices and ways of working – and relevant qualifications if available. 
• Strong skills and experience with using Agile working tools (i.e. Jira, Confluence, or Azure DevOps, or similar).
• Good understanding of typical Agile roles and the required skills and capabilities within a scaled agile framework of Tribes and Squads.
• Strong interpersonal skills that can support colleagues and be comfortable with robust challenge from stakeholders.
• Facilitating discussion, decision making, and conflict resolution.
• Strong motivational skills to help drive delivery.

Desirable Skills and Experience 

• Coaching, group leadership and team building experience/skills (and/or qualifications).
• Experience/understanding of Cloud-based technology solutions and delivery, including concepts like containerization, API management gateways, CI/CD pipelines, Automation Testing, etc. 
• Experience/understanding of Scaled Agile frameworks/implementations.
• Experience using Jira & Confluence specifically.

Salary, Benefits and Work-Life Balance

At Admiral, we are proud to be a diverse business where we put our people and customers first. We have great benefits to ensure employees have a great work-life balance; it's one of the reasons we’re consistently voted one of the Sunday Times Best Big Companies to Work For in the UK.

All colleagues will receive 33 days holiday (including banks holidays) when they join us, and this will increase with length of service, up to a maximum of 38 days (including banks holidays). You also have the option to buy or sell up to five days of annual leave in addition to your allocation.

You can also view some of our other key benefits here

Our Commitment to You

At Admiral, we are committed to being a diverse and inclusive workplace. Admiral is proud to be an equal opportunities employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, or any other legally protected status.

All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration.

#LI-IMD1 #LI-Money